So… I enjoyed writing the 20 facts, so I thought I’d do 20 more facts…
1) I’ve wanted to make a film since I was about 10 years old and laid my hands upon a Standard 8 cine camera. I’ve made several shorts since then, ‘Pedro the Peanut’, a variety of short films about cars, my sister’s wedding, 7 minutes into the future and two pride videos. Of these, 7 Minutes and the second Pride video (A Pride of Minors 2005) are definately the two I’m most proud of. Virtually none of my friends have seen ‘Pedro the Peanut’ – it was shot on Super 8 (Actually, I think a combination of Standard and Super 8) and is truly awful. Thankfully, the audiotape with the ‘sound’ on it has been recorded over, thus protecting the not-so-innocent.
2) I’ve got two star-signs. I’m an Aries in the UK – which does just basic star-sign-on-month stuff, and my exact time of birth/date/position of stars one from Sri Lanka (which has been unnervingly accurate so far) is Leo. I tend to actually say I’m Leo, because I more think that one which has actually provided useful information is likely to have some basis in something or other.
3) I used to DJ. Not for a long time, or with any great skill. I DJ’d at the University of Birmingham’s Griffin Close student residence; thanks to my friend Richard who was the DJ / sound engineer there and who heard me DJing at parties and suggested I should actually have a go. I desparately miss it. Mostly because I like being the centre of attention and because I love music.
4) I love music. Music has carried me through some incredibly difficult periods of my life; it’s carrying me through this one too. Currently my main musical squeeze is the L word album, although I desparately want to lay my hands on the Albums by The Organ and Ladytron – both of which I’ve heard off the back of the L word. I also love the CCC – Revolved album, and quite a lot of modern chart stuff (yes, you may kill me now).
5) I own a GPS. Not because I need one, despite my occasional and severe lapses my navigation is actually pretty good, but because my iPaq was getting so out of date that I had to buy it or risk it not being available. It’s a fun toy, I’ve been playing with it while I’ve been at home – filling the space again; and I can’t wait to stick it in the car and just see what it does :-)
6) I’ve met a lot of people who I now class as friends I met through the internet, mostly though online mailing lists – and indeed, mostly they can be traced back to one person. Scary that.
7) An exception to the above through one person bit is Alexa, who I met because she said “hey, you sound cool”, which is always a nice thing to hear.
8) I love nursing, which is good, considering that’s what I have spent the last 2 years training to do. But I do, I love it, it makes me feel damn good. Which, frankly, is what your job should do for you. If it doesn’t I truly believe you should ditch whatever you’re doing as quickly as possible and get yourself a job where you do love what you’re doing. You might die tomorrow, if you did and the only thing you’d done with your life you hated, how would you feel? (Apart from being dead… never mind).
9) I love flying. Love it. Just love it. I want to get a pilot’s licence some day, but can’t afford to at the moment. Just the feeling of being in the air, looking down at the world from up there, it’s fabulous, utterly fabulous.
10) I’ve flown and landed a plane.
11) I failed my driving test first time, since then I’ve rolled a car which I had to write off, but other than that there’s been not really much in the way of accidents, thankfully. Mostly I think this is more luck, than my driving which seems to be rooted mostly in extreme laziness.
12) Motorcycles are an unadulterated love of mine. I don’t want them particularly fast, if you can’t have fun on a 125 you’re doing it wrong. My 250 is a bike which brings me great joy, and great pain at the same time. But I still love it, and whilst it’s off the road I miss it.
13) I don’t hate anyone. I just can’t find the enthusiasm for it. My brain just isn’t wired that way. Hating people takes energy which I could use for something creative or productive. Mind you, I don’t live in America and have to watch the mess he’s making of (if I did) my country, and thus I can’t say if I *would* if I was there.
14) That doesn’t mean I like Shrub, I find him intensely annoying and would very much like him to fall foul of [all] of the laws he’s broken and spend a long time in prison, come out disgraced and pennyless and have to find out what it’s like for all the people he’s screwed over when they don’t get hand-outs from daddy.
15) My dad taught me about car maintainance; actually he taught both me and my sister, but I was the tom-boy so I took to it like a duck to, uh, water. I stopped for a long time, but when I went to university a second time I started to discover that I couldn’t afford to have someone else maintain my car for me; and hence I started to do it again, finding that I actually really enjoyed the accomplishment – and also the noteriety of being on of very few girls who do car maintainance.
16) I was nearly a graphic artist. I made it to the 3rd round of a recruiting process for someone I can’t remember, back when I was at university. I simply applied on spec, sending a couple of photos I’d processed and was shocked to get as far as I did. I also had an interview as a graphic designer which went very badly; mostly because they’d not read my CV – and the first thing they said when I walked through the door was “So, here’s photoshop, show us how you’d do [something]”; to which I said, “I’m afraid I’ve not used photoshop”….
17) I have a thing for Eastern Bloc technology, particularly cars and bikes. But really any of it is interesting to me, to see how a scientific community so shielded from the western monoculture solved problems and developed, particularly with such limited resources, it intrigues me and also their solutions tend to be so much neater. Like the cosmonauts pencil, the two stroke is such a beautifully simple concept that it must be the right answer.
18) I’m a lesbian. Didja guess by the girl with girlfriends? No? Okay, let me go through this very slowly. I don’t fancy blokes, so I won’t sleep with them. k? Good :-)
19) I’m still in touch with my first ever friend. When I was 2 I met a kid from an ajoining street; he was called Brian. Well, actually he still is, and I last spoke to him… yesterday. We ought to meet up, we’ve not seen each other for 6 years.
20) I want to live somewhere remote, with mountains that I can walk up and stand on and admire and love.
